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Almost no week goes by without a cryptocurrency ICO suffering from a hack of some sorts. Tens of millions of Dollars have been lost through these types of incidents. The latest company to join this growing list goes by the name of Aventus. Someone successfully spoofed an email coming from them to make users deposit Ethereum to a wrong address. It is unclear how much money has been lost so far, but it will be rather substantial, by the look of things.
Criminals are targeting ICO projects for some time now. Either they send fake links through Slack or hack pages belonging to the project’s website. In every single case, at least some people send Ethereum to a wrong address. The recent Aventus ICO debacle is yet another clear example of how this industry is filled with pitfalls. Their slack has been compromised and someone sent an email to potential investors with a fake deposit address. Not a good sign for a company hoping to raise millions of dollars.
Aventus Royally Messes up Their Security
Having your Slack channel compromised is a big problem, though. Although fake spam bots on Slack are nothing new, this is something else entirely. In fact, any warning put up by the team is automatically removed in seconds. Right now, it seems Aventus has not taken any proper security precautions to prevent these attacks. If the core dev team is even exposed to these types of hacks, there’s no reason to trust them with any money.
It is quite baffling how these “blockchain” companies can mess up security so badly. Virtually every ICO wants to decentralize something. Yet they still rely on centralized servers and services to inform investors and raise money. It is evident this approach isn’t working out all that well. If they fail to secure a website or Slack channel, one wonders how they want to revolutionize the financial world. Bad practices like these need to be weeded out as soon as possible. Aventus has a lot of explaining to do and plenty of issues to sort out.
For the time being, there is no overview of how money may have been lost. Considering the company’s ICO hasn’t even started, that’s not a good sign. No one should trust Aventus or any company suffering from hacks like these. Without due diligence on the project’s end, the entire concept is destined to fail. Moreover, it is time ICO teams start to take security more seriously. So far, their approach has been pretty lackluster, to say the least.
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